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wonder, that, being God blessed for ever, thou wouldest become man; or, that, condescending to be man, thou wouldest take upon thee the shape of a servant; a servant to those, whose Lord, whose God thou wert?

What proportion could there be, O blessed Jesu, betwixt a God and a Man; betwixt finite and infinite? The in the flesh- only power of thy everlasting and unmeasurable love hath so reduced one of these to the other, that both are united in that glorious person of thine, to make up an absolute Saviour of Mankind. O the height and depth of this supercelestial mystery; that the Infinite Deity and finite flesh should meet in one subject! yet so, as the Humanity should not be absorbed of the Godhead, nor the Godhead coarcted by the Humanity; but both inseparably united: that the Godhead is not Humanized, the Humanity is not Deified; both are indivisibly conjoined; conjoined so, as without coufusion distinguished. So wert thou, O God, Manifested in the flesh, that thou, The Word of thine Eternal Father, wert made flesh; and dwellest amongst us; and we men beheld thy glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; John i. 14. Yet, so wert thou made flesh, as not by conversion into flesh, but as by assumption of flesh to thine Eternal Deity; assumption, not into the nature of the Godhead, but into the person of thee who art God everlasting. O Mystery of Godliness, incomprehensibly glorious! Cease, cease, O human curiosity; and, where thou canst not comprehend, wonder and adore.

SECT. III.

BUT, O Saviour, was it not enough for thee to be manifested in flesh? Did not that elementary composition carry in it abasement enough, without any further addition? since, for God to become man, was more, than for all things to be redacted to nothing: but that, in the rank of miserable manhood, thou wouldest humble thyself to the lowest of Humanity, and become a servant? Shall I say more? I can hear Bildad, the Shuhite, say, Man is a worm; Job xxv. 6: and I hear him, who was a noble type of thee, say, as in thy person, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of all the people; Psalm xxii. 6. O Saviour, in how despicable a condition do I find thee exhibited to the world! lodged in a stable; cradled in a manger; visited by poor shepherds; employed in a homely trade; attended by mean fishermen; tempted by presumptuous devils; persecuted by the malice of envious men; exposed to hunger, thirst, nakedness, weariness, contempt! How many slaves, under the vassalage of an enemy, fare better than thou didst, from ingrateful man, whom thou camest to

save! Yet, all these were but a mild and gentle preface to those thy last sufferings, wherewith thou wert pleased to shut up this scene of mortality: there I find thee, sweating blood in thine agony; crowned with thorns; bleeding with scourges; buffeted with cruel hands; spat upon by impure mouths; laden with thy fatal burden; distended upon that torturing cross; nailed to that tree of shame and curse; reviled and insulted upon by the vilest of men; and, at last, that no part of thy precious blood might remain unshed, pierced to the heart, by the spear of a late and impertinent malice.

Thus, thus, O God and Saviour, wouldest thou be manifested in the flesh, that the torments of thy flesh and thy spirit might be manifested to that world, which thou camest to redeem: thus, wast thou wounded for our transgressions; thus, wast thou bruised for our iniquities; thus, were the chastisements of our peace upon thee; and thus, with thy stripes are we healed; Isaiah liii. 5. O blessed, but still incomprehensible Mystery of Godliness; God thus manifested in the flesh, in weakness, contempt, shame, pain, death!

Once only, O Blessed Jesu, while thou wert wayfaring upon this globe of earth, didst thou put on glory; even upon Mount Tabor, in thy heavenly Transfiguration: then, and there, did thy face shine as the sun, and thy raiment was white as the light; Matt. xvii. 2. Mark ix. 2, 3. Luke ix. 29. How easy had it been for thee, to have continued this celestial splendor to thy Humanity, all the whole time of thy sojourning upon earth, that so thou mightest have been adored of all mankind! How would all the nations under heaven have flocked unto thee, and fallen down at the feet of so glorious a Majesty! What man in all the world would not have said with Peter, Lord, it is good for us to be here? Or, if it had pleased thee to have commanded Moses and Elias to wait upon thee, in thy mediatory perambulation; and to attend thee at Jerusalem, on the Mount of Sion, as they did in the Mount of Tabor; whom hadst thou not in a zealous astonishment, drawn after thee? But, it was thy will, and the pleasure of thy Heavenly Father, that this glorious appearance should soon be overshadowed with a cloud: and, as those celestial guests, now in the midst of thy glory, spent their conference about thy bitter sufferings, and thine approaching departure out of the world; so wert thou, for the great work of our redemption, willing to be led from the Mount Tabor to Mount Calvary, from the height of that glory to the lowest depth of sorrow, pain, exinanition.

Thus vile wert thou, O Saviour, in the flesh; but, in this vileness of flesh, manifested to be God. How did all thy creatures, in this extremity of thine abasement, agree to acknowledge and celebrate thine Infinite Deity! The angels came down from heaven, to visit and attend thee: the sun pulled in

his head, as abhorring to look upon the sufferings of his Maker: the earth was covered over with darkness, and quaked for the horror of that indignity, which was offered to thee in that bloody passion: the rocks rent: the graves opened themselves; and sent up their long since putrified tenants, to wait upon thee, the Lord of Life, in thy glorious Resurrection: so as thou, in thy despised and crucified flesh, wert abundantly manifested to be the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth.

SECT. IV.

O BLESSED Saviour, thou, the true God manifested in the flesh, be thou pleased to manifest unto the soul of thy servant the unspeakable riches of thy love and mercy to mankind, in that great work of our redemption. Vouchsafe to affect my heart, with a lively sense of that infinite goodness of thine, towards the wretchedest of thy creatures: that, for our sake, thou camest down, and clothedst thyself in our flesh: and clothedst that pure and holy flesh, with all the miseries that are incident to this sinful flesh of ours: and wast content to undergo a bitter, painful, ignominious death from the hands of man; that, by dying, thou mightest overcome death, and ransom him from that hell, to which he was, without thee, irrecoverably forfeited; and fetch him forth to life, liberty, and glory. Oh, let me not see only, but feel, this thy great Mystery of Godliness effectually working me to all hearty thankfulness for so inestimable a mercy; to all holy resolutions to glorify thee, in all my actions, in all my sufferings. Didst thou, O Saviour, being God Eternal, take flesh for me; and shall not I, when thou callest, be willing to lay down this sinful flesh for thee again? Wert thou content to abridge thyself, for the time, not only of thy heavenly magnificence, but of all earthly comforts, for my sake; and shall not I, for thy dear sake, renounce all the wicked pleasures of sin? Didst thou wear out the days of thy flesh in poverty, toil, reproach, and all earthly hardship; and shall I spend my time, in pampering this flesh in wanton dalliance, in the ambitious and covetous pursuit of vain honours and deceivable riches? Blessed Lord, thou wert manifested in the flesh, not only to be a ransom for our souls, but to be a precedent for our lives: far, far be it from me, thus to imitate the great pattern of holiness. O Jesu, the Author and Finisher of my Faith and Salvation, teach me to tread in thy gracious steps; to run, with patience, the race that is set before me; to endure the cross, to despise the shame; to be crucified to the world; to work all righteousness.

SECT. V.

How easily could I be drawn to envy the privilege of those eyes, which saw thee here walking upon earth, O God and Saviour, in the days of thy manifesting thyself in flesh? Oh, what a happy spectacle was this, to see the face of him, in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily! All the world is not worth such a sight. Whither could I not wish to go, to see but a just portraiture of that shape, wherein thou wert pleased to converse with men ?

But thy holy Apostle checks this useless curiosity in me, while he says, If we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him so no more; 2 Cor. v. 16. It is not the outside of thy human form, the view whereof can make us more holy, or more happy. Judas saw thee, as well as he, that lay on thy bosom: those saw thee, that maligned and persecuted thee; and shall once again see thee, to their utmost horror; see him, whom they pierced. They saw that flesh, in which God was manifested: they saw not God manifested in the flesh. It is our great comfort and privilege, that it was flesh, wherein God was manifested; but it is not in the flesh, but in the Deity, to render us blessed.

O Saviour, I dare not beg of thee, so to manifest thyself to me, as thou didst to thy Chosen Vessel, in his way to Damascus; or to thy First Martyr, in the storm of his lapidation: these miraculous manifestations are not for my meanness to sue for. But, let me never cease to crave of thee a double manifestation of thyself to me: be pleased to manifest thyself to me, in the clear illuminations of thy Spirit; let me by the eyes of my faith clearly see thee both sprawling in the manger, and walking upon earth, and tempted in the wilderness, and arraigned in the judgment-hall, and suffering upon Calvary, and rising out of thy tomb, and ascending from thy Olivet, and reigning in heaven, and there interceding for me: and, after my approaching dissolution, let my soul see thee in that glorified flesh, wherein thou wert manifested to the world; and in the Majesty of that all-glorious Deity, which assumed it to that ever blessed society of glory.

SECT. VI.

It was thy mercy, O God, that thou wouldest not keep up thyself close in thine eternal, spiritual, and incomprehensible essence, unknown to thy creatures upon earth; but, that thou wouldest be manifested to the world. It was yet thy further mercy, that thou wert not only pleased to manifest thyself to man, in the wonderful works of thy creation, (since those invisible things of thine are understood, and clearly seen by the

things that are made, even thine eternal power and Godhead; Rom. i. 20:) but to manifest thyself yet more clearly to us in thy sacred word, the blessed oracles of thine eternal truth. But it was the highest pitch of thy mercy, that thou wouldest manifest thyself yet more to us in the flesh: thou mightest have sent us thy gracious messages by the hands of thine angels, those glorious ministering spirits, that do continually attend thy throne: this would not content thee; but, such was thy love to us forlorn wretches, that thou wouldest come thyself, to finish the work of our redemption. Neither didst thou think it enough, to come to us in a spiritual way; imparting thyself to us by secret suggestions and inspirations, by dreams and visions, but wouldest vouchsafe openly to be manifested in our flesh.

How then, O my God, how wert thou manifested in the flesh was not the flesh thy veil? Heb. x. 20. and wherefore serves a veil, but to hide and cover? Did not thy Deity then lie hid and obscured, while thou wert here on earth, under the veil of thy flesh? How then wert thou manifested in that flesh, wherein thou didst lie obscured? Surely, thou wert certainly manifested in respect of thy presence, in that sacred flesh of thine; though, for the time, thy power and majesty lay hid under the veil. Sometimes, thou wert pleased, that this Sun of thy Deity should break forth, in the glorious beams of Divine Operations; to the dazzling of the eyes of men and devils; to the full eviction of thine omnipotent power against thy envious gainsayers: at other times, thou wert content it should be clouded over with the dim and dusky appearances of human infirmity. The more thou wert obscured, the more didst thou manifest thy most admirable humility, and unparallelable love to mankind, whose weakness thou disdainedst not to take up; and, the more thou didst exert thy power, in thy miraculous works, the more didst thou glorify thyself, and vindicate thine Almighty Deity thus manifested in the flesh. Oh, that thou wouldest enable me to give thee the due praise, both of thine Infinite Mercy in this thine humble obscurity, and of thy Divine Omnipotence; who, as thou wert manifested in the flesh, so wast also justified in the Spirit.

-justified in the Spirit

SECT. VII.

HE, that should have seen thee, O Saviour, working in Joseph's shop, or walking in the fields or streets of Nazareth, or journeying towards Jerusalem, would have looked upon thee as a mere man: neither did thy garb or countenance bewray any difference in thee from the ordinary sort of men. So did thy Godhead please to conceal itself, for a time, in that flesh, wherein thou

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